the next step

[Peter Squire]

Hi everyone

Our band has been playing some of the better clubs in our town over the last year. We have residencies in three venues.

We have noticed that lately we don't have to beg our friends to come along to make up the audience - we are getting punters coming along because they know us and like our music.

Now its time for the next step - a real promo push to get us bigger audiences and maybe get noticed by some other clubs too.

To date, we have had a really smart banner made, we have posters in the Uni and the local arts centre. This band I am talking about is my cover band (the originals band is a different kettle of fish altogether!). We still do the group SMS to people we know, but I am wondering if anyone else has ideas to promote our band. I have some very good contacts within the industry, but we want to work without the rules of an agent.

I'm thinking of using some of the promo budget for some print advertising, as that seems to work better around here. Just FYI, we put away 15% of all our takings into a promo budget.
Print advertising is quite expensive, but I have managed to get some deals in place.

Any other ideas from the pool of TB knowledge would be great!

Thanks

pete

[DaftCat]

Assuming you mean promoting the cover band.

What we have done to get more gigs(and more exposure) is just show up at the more established jams(read: good players, full setup with soundman) and it goes from there.

The house band has gotten us gigs and sometimes people in the audience need a band for a wedding, biker festival, etc.

Hope this helps,

[cassanova]

There are a few things you can do.

You can send in a promo package to your local radio stations and hope and pray they'll plug you.

You can make up flyers and distribute them in local music stores, coffee shops, put them on car windshields in parking lots. Basically, place them anywhere that you think the type of people that listen to your music would congregate.

You can also talk with other bands and see if they'll plug you on their off nights.

You can also place an ad in the entertainment section of your local newspapers and music flyers.

[Peter Squire]

Thanks Cass, Daft

We are already doing the promo pack, but haven't sent any to the radio stations yet.

We're hoping to use some of our contacts at the Uni to get a spot on their local music show (the guitarist is studying sound engineering so he should be able to get us something)